


Expectation

by thedevilchicken



Category: The Guardian (2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 13:32:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11209083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Since Jake arrived at Kodiak, there's been a whole lot of things that've happened that Ben just didn't expect.





	Expectation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tarlan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/gifts).



Since Jake arrived at Kodiak, there's been a whole lot of things that've happened that Ben just didn't expect.

First of all: he didn't expect to live. The height of the fall should've killed him and he remembers unstrapping the glove from around his wrist and letting go, not expecting to live past the next thirty seconds. He remembers the moment after that when he started to drop down toward the water, thinking that was it, the end of the line, no more lives to save except for Jake's and no more lives to lose except his own. It was terrifying and it was liberating right at the exact same moment, fucked up as that seemed. Maybe he didn't want to die, but he could've thought of worse ways to go.

Except then Jake, the stubborn ass, caught his wrist and hung on tight, and the cable they were hanging from held itself together just long enough for the helo crew to MacGyver a shitty but stable new harness and secure them both in place with it. They still couldn't winch them up after that, though, and Jake just looked at him the whole time they were hanging there, the whole time they were heading back to base dangling together over the sea at the end of the line, both of them blinking stinging saltwater out of their eyes with Ben's legs slung loosely round Jake's hips like that was somehow normal for the two of them, being that close. Jake knew what he'd tried to do and he hadn't let him do it, and he looked at him like he hated it but also like he understood. And after that, once they'd touched down back on the rainswept air field back at Kodiak, Jake didn't breathe a word of it. It stayed between the two of them. Ben knew he'd done nothing wrong, but he still appreciated that.

Second of all: he didn't expect to wind up with a house guest. Sure, it wasn't like he didn't mean it the day he told Jake he could crash on his couch if on-base accommodation was getting to him the way he repeatedly and vocally complained it was, but he didn't actually expect he'd take him up on it; then, here Jake was on his doorstep three nights later, knocking on the door with his bag slung over his shoulder like that was all he owned in the world and a look on his face someplace under the forced-looking smile like he wondered if Ben was going to change his mind and kick him straight back out again. He didn't. He stood aside. He let him in, maybe not just because he's a man of his word.

It turned out Jake was too tall to fit on the couch and Ben guessed that wasn't a surprise since he'd always been too tall for it himself. So, they blew up a beat-up, patched-up air mattress in front of the TV over a couple of bottles of beer Ben had been storing on the deck 'cause it was almost as cold outside as it was in the refrigerator, taking turns with a foot pump Ben dug out of the garage that looked ten years older than he was. Jake looked the whole time like he'd just stepped into the Twilight Zone and not just his coworker's den; Ben found it amusing enough to sacrifice another couple of beers to the endeavor, and they took them outside to sit on the deck overlooking the sea. The sun had set hours before and the water looked black as oil, but the light from inside was enough for them to see by.

"So, where did you come from, before here?" Jake asked then, giving him a sidelong look as he shivered in his parka that was zipped up all the way to his chin. Ben figured he'd either get used to the cold and the dark or it'd drive him back to warmer climes in double-quick time, and it wasn't even fully winter yet.

Fourth: Ben didn't expect to answer that question, but he shrugged and then he did it anyway. He told him about growing up right on the edge of a beach in southern California, how there'd always been sand in his shoes and salt in his hair because he'd woken up real early every morning to go surf before school, rain or shine. And maybe there'd been no swim team to make him want to join the US Coast Guard, but the USCG had been there when his grandfather's boat had gotten lost at sea one day when he was seventeen and somehow that had made it seem like a legitimate career choice. Before, it had just been the kind of crap that other people did. Before that, he'd've been happy to surf all day. He'd been pretty good at it, he said. Then he said he was pretty sure he was a better swimmer. 

And jeez, he remembers how back then he'd been so damned competitive. He told Jake about it, leaning closer to his chair conspiratorially like it was some kind of a closely guarded secret and not just the simple truth, how that was how he'd wound up with his name all over the records board; he'd only done the goddamn training in the first place to prove that he could, because it was something else for him to excel at, to be the best at, and that was how it it had been right up until he'd gotten assigned to Kodiak. His first rescue there had been real rough, high seas, a thunderstorm at night in the middle of winter. It couldn't've been a whole lot worse for the first time out, some swimmers never catch one like that in a whole career, and when they'd gotten back on base when all was said and done, when they'd saved twelve lives but lost two along the way, when he was throwing up his dinner down on his knees in the head, he'd understood. That night it had stopped being a career and started being a vocation.

Jake nodded like he got it, then took another sip of his beer as he looked out over the water. The way they've worked together since then, Ben guesses maybe he did.

Of course, the next thing Jake said was, "Did I beat _all_ your records, Chief?"

Ben snorted. "Sure, most of them," he said. "Y'know, I timed myself in the pool after you were done kicking my ass." 

"How'd you do?"

"Pretty good," he said, and flashed Jake a quick, amused glance. "For an old guy, at least."

Jake grinned. "I don't know, Chief. You're pretty spry for a guy who's twice my age."

"Jake, you have no idea," Ben said, with half a smirk and a quirk of his brows. And for a second, just a second, it kinda looked like Jake might've wanted to hear more about that. Ben isn't sure he would've said no.

The sixth thing he didn't expect was the fact that Jake stayed. Not just that he stayed on in Kodiak - he already got that Jake was going to stay, not just because he'd been stationed there but because the work was in his blood by then - but in the house, too. Ben realized one early morning as they got back in from a job, sometime after the first couple of months, that Jake just hadn't gotten a place of his own - hell, he hadn't shown any signs of trying to find a place since circling ads in the newspaper those first couple of days, sitting at the dining table with a pen he'd borrowed from Ben because he had none of his own. It had been two months by then and the air bed was still on the floor in front of the couch, and they still had to top it up with the squeaking foot pump every night that they kept promising to oil but never did before Jake went to sleep because even with all the skills they had between, them they still couldn't find the goddamn slow puncture. They sat side by side on the couch each night with a beer in their hands, shooting the breeze like their living arrangements were in any way usual. Ben found he didn't really give a damn, however; it turned out Jake made surprisingly good company.

Three days after that particular realization, Ben bought a new couch that pulled out into a bed. Six days after that, they dragged it down off of the delivery truck and through into the den. Jake tried to act casual about it but he grinned like a fool the first time he pulled the mattress out, muttering something about how at least he wouldn't wake up in the morning with his elbows digging into the crappy hardwood floor. Ben said nothing about how bruised elbows had apparently sounded like a better deal than a bunk in the enlisted barracks back on base. Ben said nothing about how he could've moved out anytime, but had chosen not to. He said nothing about how he had no intention of making him leave.

Weeks went by. Whole months went by. They worked out together, Ben grimacing at his chin-up bar after a fistful of meds while Jake ran on the treadmill like the goddamn Energizer bunny, the one Ben had stored under tarps out in the garage since he'd screwed up his knee three winters before and decided maybe that shit was great for hamsters but not so much for him. They swam in the local pool together, Jake looking at home in his Speedo even when Ben looked him up and down in mild exasperation, and maybe just a fraction of something else besides. They drove to the base and back again together in the cab of Ben's old truck they that were pretty surprised would still start up in winter, one of them driving while the other one slept or talked or fiddled with the radio that's never worked too well at all. They worked together, gear maintenance, coiling lines, ordering in new wetsuits from central stores though Jake hates computers even more than Ben does, training in the air and in the sea. Jake was already good by then and getting better with experience. Ben started getting fewer nightmares night on night, fewer flashbacks, till everything felt right even if it didn't exactly feel good. Jake's the same way as he is about the shit he's been through, even now. Ben figures they'll both be that way as long as they live, to some extent.

Whole months went by like that, then a year. Jake was still in the house, a volunteer on call for the fire department when he wasn't on call for search and rescue, more energy in him than Ben could ever remember having in his whole life. They'd gotten used to each other somewhere along the line, somehow hadn't gotten sick of each other, and there they were, twelve months, eighteen months after Jake had flown in on the transport, a successful team. Jake could beat the pants off of him in a pool and Ben still had the edge out there in freezing, choppy water, but the kid was catching up. They turned into a hell of a team, but it's not like that was unexpected. It's just all the other stuff that was.

Then the couch broke. Jake called it _catastrophic mechanical failure_ in his most over-the-top woeful tone of voice, shaking his head dramatically as he gestured at it. It listed sadly to one side, sort of like a sinking ship. They've both seen more than their fair share of those to make the comparison, Ben guesses.

"There's plenty of room in the bed," Ben said, and he shrugged and he walked away.

Seven: he hadn't expected to say that. He expected Jake to follow even less. Jake followed.

They both stripped to their boxers and their undershirts, no need to close the blinds because out there, who was there to see? They'd seen each other in less than that, of course, and more than once, but it seemed a whole lot different then and there, in Ben's bedroom and not on base after a rescue. Ben stretched out on the mattress and Jake stood there mute and looked at him like there was a question there that he really didn't know how the hell to ask, but then he got into bed and he let it drop. Jake had had a habit of saying the first thing that came into his head right from the day they'd met. The fact he _didn't_ ask the question had to mean something, but Ben turned out the light and closed his eyes. It felt safer not to question it, not that he'd ever been the type of guy to take the safe route before.

Nothing happened that night except sleep but Ben lay there like a total jackass, almost hoping that it would. He hadn't shared a bed with anyone since Helen, mostly because he hadn't wanted to, but there they were, side by side, awkward but not really, like the choice made sense but didn't. And in the morning they got up and they ate breakfast, they grabbed the newspaper and Jake read the sports pages while Ben read the local news and then they switched the two around. Nothing was different. Ben wasn't sure if he'd expected it would be or not.

"You coming, Fish?" Ben asked that night, standing himself up from the lopsided couch where they'd been watching TV. Jake looked up at him with that same question written on his face, and then he stood and followed. 

"You coming, Fish?" Ben asked the next night, already on his way into the bedroom. Jake turned off the TV and followed him, already pulling off his shirt. 

"You coming, Fish?" Ben asked the night after that, and the night after that, until he didn't need to ask and every night, or every morning, every time that sleep was the most pressing issue on the list of things they had to do, they went together. 

Three weeks after that, maybe four weeks, Ben realized he had a side of the bed for the first time in years. Six weeks after that, maybe eight weeks, Ben realized the way Jake shifted his weight in the night had stopped waking him up. Ten weeks, it had stopped feeling weird every time his ankle brushed against Jake's under the sheets or his shoulder did. Fourteen weeks, it had stopped feeling weird having conversations in the dark after they'd turned out the lights, mostly Jake talking but that was pretty normal for the two of them. Sometimes he wondered how many weeks it'd take for him to stop wanting Jake to brush against him more than accidentally. It was shitty, sure, because he outranked the kid pretty solidly, but there it was. He figured it had been there for a while, maybe since that night at A School. He knows he drank a glass of cheap scotch after they'd gotten back from the bar, after all, remembering the look on Jake's face when they'd talked about his old team, remembering how Jake looked at him like he'd gotten his hand around his guilt and squeezed. He knows he thought about Jake later, and not in the way a senior chief should really think about an airman. He still doesn't know where the hell it came from, but he sure as hell knows it came.

Half a year, and the situation changed in one night. It was a bad one, a _really_ bad one, and the helo had to fly out to refuel, already ten minutes past the red line and Ben sure as hell wasn't about to lose the crew. So they sent up the last of the survivors instead of themselves, not a tough call to make because they knew their work but maybe the uncertainty of what they were doing stung, and then they sat there for _hours_ after, floating in a life raft, freezing their asses off in the windswept, flare-lit dark. Ben squeezed his eyes shut till the body next to him was Jake again and not Carl and he was living again and not several hours dead. Jake held onto him, shivering, his teeth chattering, and neither one of them said a single thing about whether or not they'd make it back alive. Ben wanted to. He shivered against Jake, his jaw clenched so hard it ached, his fingers caught tight in the fabric of Jake's suit. Maybe he'd've given his life for Jake's but he sure as hell didn't want to go like that. He wanted to live. In the end, they did. 

The EMTs back on base checked them both out after they got back and then they trudged inside, showered, took their time under the hot water side by side. Ben shot Jake a glance and found him already looking back. Ben frowned. Jake frowned. Jake stepped forward. Jake lifted one hand and he looked at him, frowning hard, like he had no clue what he wanted to do or at least no clue where that hand was going to go except in the end he squeezed Ben's bicep with it. His other hand moved to Ben's other arm, still under the shower spray, hot and wet and bare. And fuck, that question was back there on his face again. He'd never gotten an answer, but Ben knew exactly what that answer was.

"Not here," Ben said, tightly, though he knew he should've just said no. 

Jake stepped back. He nodded. They left. 

One of the newly-arrived airmen drove them back home after they dried and dressed and they went inside in silence, none of Jake's usual chit-chat to clear the air the way it usually did. Ben locked the door behind them though they had pretty much nothing anyone could've wanted to steal and Jake looked at him with that same question right there on his face again. Ben nodded. They headed for Ben's room. Maybe what they did in there, once they'd stripped down to their skin, was wrong by Coast Guard standards, but Ben found he really didn't give a damn. It was easy somehow to let Jake put his hands on him. It was easy somehow to push Jake down on the bed there flat on his back and lean over him. The question had an answer, and the answer was _yes_.

There was lube in the drawers at Jake's side of the bed that Jake used in the bathroom every now and then, in a tube Ben had been pretending he didn't know was there. Jake's cheeks flushed when Ben went for it, but his sheepish look didn't last for long. And okay, they were tired, the adrenaline of it all was winding down, but when Ben pushed into him with Jake's long legs wrapped tight around his waist, his hands pressed to his shoulderblades, they made it last till they were breathless. It seemed like the right thing to do.

In the morning, they got up and they ate breakfast and they sat down at the dining table, each with half the newspaper just like normal, like nothing had changed at all. When Ben cleared the table after, he wasn't surprised when Jake stepped up close behind him; he just turned and dragged him down into a kiss, to which Jake in no way objected. And later that night, after a day on base filing stacks of reports, when they got back, when they went to bed, Jake straddled Ben's hips and rode him slowly till he came. Ben couldn't say that felt wrong, either.

"You look pleased with yourself," Ben told him, after, rubbing the lines of Jake's hips with his thumbs. 

"You look pretty pleased with my self too, old man," Jake replied, with a grin. Ben laughed. Hell, there was no denying it was true - he _was_ pleased.

It's been six years now since then. Ben retired last fall and started coaching the damn high school swim team to keep himself busy but Jake's still going strong, two promotions, a dozen commendations, all the things Ben did and more. Still, it's kinda tough to be jealous when that's nothing close to what the work's about. It's kinda tough to be jealous when he's mostly just relieved Jake's still alive.

Nothing really changed after that first night, and Ben knows it; everything just carried on just the way it'd been before. He figures the reason nothing changed was they'd been two thirds of the way there already. Maybe he'd expected it after all. 

It's been six years now. They've never fixed the couch, and Jake's never left.


End file.
